


Your Hand (In Mine)

by letterfromathief



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterfromathief/pseuds/letterfromathief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s unbearable, intolerable. Inexcusable, the knot in her throat when they part, Emma stumbling back two or three steps before she regains her footing. His hands are the only thing she can look at because she can’t look him in the eye, not after – not when this second kiss is still breathing fire into her tired lungs and his confession is bouncing off the inside of her skull, words she can’t forget even if she tried. (Neverland Canon Divergence)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Hand (In Mine)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://swanisms.tumblr.com/post/120109748596/your-hand-in-mine).

It’s unbearable, intolerable. Inexcusable, the knot in her throat when they part, Emma stumbling back two or three steps before she regains her footing. His hands are the only thing she can look at because she can’t look him in the eye, not after – not _when_ this second kiss is still breathing fire into her tired lungs and his confession is bouncing off the inside of her skull, words she can’t forget even if she tried.

(She tried.)

Hook’s hand is lifted towards her, like he might grab her again. Emma doesn’t know what she wants more, for him to pull her into his arms and kiss her – or for him to pull her into his arms and never let go.

What’s worse is that the terrible, stupidly reckless voice inside her keeps nagging at her: “Why not both?” The other voice is quieter, the voice of a lost girl scared that if she speaks too loud, she might chase him, them – _everyone_ away.

His hand is outstretched towards her. What she _should_ want more is to run from this moment, from the way he’d followed her from the camp and asked her if she was okay, and she’d answered with the kiss now whipping fever in her veins.

She should want to run, but Emma’s running on empty when reflex takes over and steals her carefully held control. She has his hand in hers, no possible way she could’ve stopped the motion. She can’t look at him though, even as he says her name, lilting upwards in question.

(The terrible voice says her name sounds like some kind of magic from his lips; the lost girl quietly agrees.)

What finally draws her eyes to his is his hook lifting towards her, falling beneath her chin and so carefully tipping her head up that she’d rather break down in tears in front of him than see that look she knows (hopes) is in his eyes. The one that makes her neck stiffen with the urge to look around and check to make sure she’s still there because no one could possibly look at her that way. Not the woman with enough issues to fill a book, or several, and walls so high she can barely see herself beyond them.

Yet, he sees her. Sees her like no one ever has. Certainly not Neal who hears she wished he was dead and sees it as some kind of…some kind of _invitation_ back into her life. Not Graham, dead before he ever had the chance to see anything at all. Not anyone, not anyone.

For a moment, she lets herself entertain the image of them together. The thought should be fleeting, but it isn’t, and it terrifies her to think that he sees her like no one ever will.

Terrifying that he’s looking at her now like all the stars in the galaxy have died out and she’s the only one to remain. The dimmest, saddest, loneliest star of them all left to light the way, but to where? A future?

Certainly, it isn’t lighting the way back to her. No one ever comes back.

Except him.

(His secret won’t let her go. She can’t let go of his hand.)

“Emma,” he says – and thank god for small favors when he doesn’t add the ‘love’ to the end. She couldn’t deal with that right now.

‘Maybe _you’re_ the one who couldn’t handle it.’

He was too right. And this is so very wrong, but a part of her, the small part that isn’t trying to breathe out his kiss and his confession and Neal’s “secret” so she can regain the strength she needs to find Henry, wants it to be right.

( _Until I met you._ )

He slides his hook from under her chin now that’s she looking at him. There’s a twitch to the movement, a small twinge of nervousness that makes her already aching head hurt more with the way his eyes flicker to his hook, just for a second, a confirmation she didn’t need.

‘You bested me. I can count the amount of people who’ve done that on one hand.’

‘That supposed to be funny?’

It didn’t feel funny right now, especially not when she has one hand squeezing his and the other throbbing painfully at her side in a clenched fist she didn’t think would open ever again, not until the tears start to slip down her cheeks. And look! She got her wish to cry in front of him and not see that damned expression. She can’t see anything at all, really, except for his blue eyes, the color clouded by her wet vision.

Emma can still feel though. The arm he wraps around her is heavy and solid, begging her to seek some kind of comfort in his embrace. They’re still holding hands, even when Emma’s control slips so far as to have never been there at all and she throws her other arm beneath his, feels the cool of his leather against her skin as she tugs him closer and burrows her face within the warm crook of his neck.

She doesn’t inhale. She can barely breathe over the sobs that rock her chest. Sobs she refuses to let make a sound, not even now when everyone’s asleep and so far away from this place she ran to that they wouldn’t even hear. Emma’s always cried without making a sound anyway, why change that now? Even having someone else’s, _his_ shoulder to cry on this time doesn’t change anything.

It doesn’t change a damn thing.

It doesn’t stop her chest from tightening at the thought of Henry in Pan’s clutches, from the thought that she might (won’t) leave her father behind in this awful land, at the fact that she isn’t enough for her mother – (‘ _No one’s ever been there for me – except for you_ ’ and you’d rather be there for someone else, someone newer, shinier, _better._ )

Nothing has changed at all. She’s running on empty, running in the same place she’s always been, lost and afraid. And nothing has changed, but when she inhales for the first time since she fell into his arms, the air is warm. He smells like sweat and Neverland’s earth, and she feels it when he swallows hard, just before he says, “I won’t ask if you’re okay, but I’ll sit with you until you are.”

He pauses. Swallows again. “If that’s what you want.”

Emma inhales again. Her nose is stuffed and her face and his neck are wet with pointless tears. She can’t think of what she wants right now, but she does know what she needs.

Not another kiss. She doesn’t need to steal comfort from his lips and bruise him even more with her thoughtless (terrible, stupidly reckless) actions. Nor is she ready for their fire to burn everything to ash again.

She needs this: warm arms around her, not asking for anything of her but accepting of what she’s willing to give.

Emma pulls her head back up and relinquishes her tight hold on his back. She rubs at her eyes until her vision returns, and this time, she can look at him directly. His starry-eyed expression still makes her tense up, reflex motion, but it passes. She takes a deep breath, hand still gripping his.

“Thank you. I’d like that.”


End file.
